T is for Terminal
by Jelsemium
Summary: A chance meeting in an airport terminal shows that things might not be as hopeless as they look. This was originally written for, guess what, the 2006 Alphabet Challenge at Numb3rs dot org.


T is for Terminal

T is also for Rating, as the characters are getting potty mouthed.

A is for...

Author: Jelsemium

Angst Fic, just so you'll know

D is for…

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters.

Description: A chance meeting in an airport bar.

This was original written for the 2006 Alphabet Fiction Challenge at Numb3rs dot org. Head on over there if you want to join the 2007 Alphabet Fiction Challenge!

"Sorrows can not only swim, they can run faster than you." - JD Weber

xxx ooo xxx ooo

Terry Lake sighed as she searched Killian's Boston Pub for an empty stool. There came a time when a woman just had to admit defeat and regroup. This time her marriage was definitely over.

Admitting such a dismal failure called for a drink, and Killian's, being inside Logan International Airport and close to her departure gate, was elected.

She stopped scanning and squinted. That man at the bar almost looked like… "Don? Don Eppes?"

What were the odds? She wished she could ask Charlie… Oh, crap.

She grimaced. She couldn't believe that she had completely forgotten about Charlie Eppes' wedding. Obviously Don was here for that. She'd have to send her regrets with him.

The dark head lifted and her former partner fixed her with a blank look. For a moment, Terry wondered if he was drunk, then he blinked and focused. "Terry?" he said. "What are you doing here?"

Terry made a wry face. "Catching an airplane," she said blandly. She examined him with a cop's eye, but Don only looked tired and discouraged, not drunk.

"Oh," Don said. Then he shook his head and snorted. "Sorry, jet lag."

Don looked at the man sitting next to him. He didn't glare, but the other man suddenly decided to be elsewhere.

"Thanks," Terry said, setting her carryon on the floor.

Don nodded and went back to brooding into his drink… straight whiskey, if Terry's nose could be trusted.

"Why are you here?" Terry asked. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for Charlie's wedding?"

"I'm not invited."

Terry didn't comment right away. She knew Don's rocky history with his brother. Even without the psychological training, she could guess that things had gone sour again. She signaled for the bartender and ordered a martini.

Don looked at her from the corner of her eye. "Charlie will be sorry that you missed his big day. I take you you're on assignment?"

Terry shook her head. "I'm actually on vacation," she said. She didn't want to admit that she'd completely forgotten the wedding. "I'm going to have to send my regrets, because I don't think I can endure seeing another couple blithely head down the road to disaster."

Don gave a bark of laughter.

"Even worse, if I have to admit the ugly truth," Terry added. "I really hate the thought of watching somebody be good at something that I am utter crap at."

"Is that why you're going on vacation without your husband?"

"Yeah, Wade and I are through, again," Terry chomped down on her olive. She raised an eyebrow at the bartender and a few minutes later, a martini glass filled with toothpick skewered olives appeared.

"I know how that feels," Don admitted. "I have finally managed to completely alienate my brother and am now in the process of tearing my father in two."

Anybody else might have tried some platitudes, like "Oh, it couldn't be that bad." But Terry knew Don well enough to know how little hyperbole he used. "What happened?"

Don continued to drink, and Terry wondered if he'd heard her. She dunked an olive into her martini to flavor it, and then sucked it off its toothpick.

"It started after a particularly rough case," Don said. "You know the kind, we get all our ducks in a row and then the lawyers and politicians start making deals…"

"And the scum slides back onto the street," Terry finished. She took a dainty sip and dunked another olive.

Don nodded.

"That's the sort of day that contributed to the second demise of my marriage," Terry sighed. "I kept taking it out on Wade." Gloomily she stirred her martini with the current olive.

Don grimaced. "At least you can get another husband," he grunted. "Me, I hadda take it out on Charlie."

That would have been Terry's guess. "Go on," she said.

Don sighed. "Well, I went over to Charlie's house lookin' for food, beer and sympathy. I got all three, of course, but that wasn't about to satisfy me because what I really wanted a fight."

He gave a little cough that under other circumstances would have passed for a laugh. "No, what I really wanted to do was kill somebody. What I _got_ was a fight."

"It started as a discussion over who was going to wash the dishes. Dad had cooked, so one of us had dish duty."

"And instead of one washing and one drying…" Terry prompted when Don fell silent.

"We argued," Don said. "Charlie had spent the morning fighting with the antique water heater and the rose bushes. Then he had spent the afternoon grading papers. I knew his hands had to hurt; I could see bruised and scratches. I wasn't going to care. I had already decided that my lousy day at court meant that I shouldn't have to do anything but drink and watch TV."

_"All you ever do is come over here and take advantage of our hospitality!" Charlie yelled._

_"I take advantage?" I was incredulous. "You're the one who takes advantage! You have Amita working for you, without pay, because she's fool enough to think you love her. You have Dad waiting on you, hand and foot, cooking your meals, cleaning your house and doing your laundry…"_

_"Doing whose laundry?" Charlie demanded. "Special Agent I Never Learned to Fluff and Fold!"_

_"You're lucky that absent-minded professors are permitted to run around looking like a train wreck, you little snot," I yelled. "Nobody expects you to be color coordinated. And it's a damn good thing, because you never learned to dress yourself without Mom's help!"_

"Charlie looked like I had gut-punched him, and I was glad. I _wanted_ to hit him."

Don took a long pull on his drink, and then signaled the bartender for a refill. "I wish I _had_ hit him, 'cause what I did next was worse."

"You continued taunting him about your mother," Terry said softly.

"Oh, yeah, I knew that would hurt him more than anything. He still feels guilty about that P vs NP reaction.

_"Mom sacrificed a lot for you, brat. She almost lost her marriage because of you."_

Dad could see this was going deeper than our usual bickering and tried to break it up. _"Come on, we can watch the game and take care of the dishes later."_

_I wasn't to be stopped. "Sorry, Dad, you may think it's okay if you clean up after the high-and-mighty professor after I've gone, but you're wasting your time. You realize that Chuckie will just turn his back on you when you need him."_

_Charlie had gone grey, and I knew I had him against the ropes. He started stammering about how he hadn't meant to, but I didn't let him finish._

Don shook his head. "I should have backed down. I should have apologized. I should have shot myself. What I said was, _"Didn't mean what? Didn't mean to abandon Mom?"_

Terry finished her olives and waited. The bartender raised an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head.

"Dad threw me out of the house, then, but it was too late." Don sighed. "Of course, by the time I got to my apartment, I was kicking myself for going off at him like that. I wanted to go back the next day, but something came up… I didn't get back to the house for a week. I hoped that Charlie would have had time to cool down. That I'd get a chance to apologize."

"He was angry?"

"I wish," Don said gloomily. "I found him emptying out the garage."

_"What's up, Buddy? Having a garage sale?'"_

_"I'm selling the house," Charlie said flatly. _

_"But… You love this place," I protested._

_"Big deal. It's just like everything else in my life. It doesn't love me back."_

_"I gaped.'Ah, Charlie, look, I'm sorry about what I said…"_

_"You always are," Charlie's voice was so toneless; I didn't know how to react. "Huh?" was all I got out. _

_"You're always sorry after you attack me," Charlie explained._

_He was shredding some papers. I didn't even look at what he was doing. I wish I had. I wish a lot of things._

_"Charlie, please, I'm sorry."_

_He shook his head. "You've never accepted an apology for me," he said. "If you think they're so worthless, I can't see how I can accept yours."_

_"Charlie, it's just that…"_

_"You're under a lot of stress," Charlie said. He wouldn't look at me. It was like when he was doing that P vs. NP crap, only now he was focused on his shredding. "You always are. When we were kids, it was homework, or peer pressure…or the stress of having your bratty brother tagging along, or worse, your bratty brother outdoing you and your friends in class."_

_"After that, it was the stress of college, the stress of leaving college, the stress of traveling with your team. The stress of whatever it was you were doing at the time."_

_"Geez, Charlie, I didn't realize…"_

_Charlie suddenly looked at me and my vocal cords seized up. He had the same grey, on-the-ropes look he had during the fight. I wondered if he'd ever lost it. _

_"You want to know the definition of irrational behavior, Don? Irrational behavior is repeating the same actions over and over… and expecting different results."_

_"Buddy…"_

_"Don't call me that. We are not friends," Charlie said. _

_I wished he'd get angry, angry I could handle, but he was… all grey. Like he had just given up. "I've spent my entire life forgiving you, Don. I kept thinking that the bad times were the anomalies and the good times were worth…" _

_He stopped and shook his head. "I can't take this any more. I can't take having hope prove false again. I just have to face it… You don't want me in your life, and you never will."_

_Then he went into the house._

_And I realized that he'd been shredding photos of us when we were kids._

Don finished his drink and studied the empty glass as if contemplating another drink.

"You've had enough," Terry said decisively.

Don tilted his head as if thinking about that, and then he nodded. He signaled for the bartender to bring his bill and he paid for Terry's, too.

"There has to be some way of getting Charlie to listen to you," Terry said. She considered offering her assistance.

Then Don shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "I doubt he'd stay in the same room as me for five minutes." He snorted. "Unless I had him handcuffed or something."

Terry's eyes narrowed and an evil grin played across her face. "Handcuffs? Maybe that can be arranged."

"That's misuse of government equipment, Agent Lake," Don said, looking faintly amused.

"Only if you use the cuffs the FBI issued you," Terry said. "I know some shops where you can get some really nice ones, if you like black leather or pink fur."

Don snorted, and then shook his head.

"Don, you can't just give up on him," Terry urged.

Don raised an eyebrow. "This from the woman who left her husband? And who…" he stopped there and lifted his glass.

"And who left you?" Terry prompted.

Don shook his head. "I can't blame you for that. It was _our_ decision to call it off. We had too much to do, then, to make it work." He gestured to the bartender and ordered iced coffee.

Terry abandoned the last of her martini and ordered iced green tea. If she wasn't going to sit around feeling sorry for herself, she didn't need the booze. "But you're right," she said.

"Halleluiah, the age of miracles has not passed."

Terry punched him in the arm.

"Ow!"

"I shouldn't just walk out on my husband," she said. "It isn't right. I made a commitment and…" she trailed off.

"You love him," Don finished for her.

"Yes."

"He's an idiot if he doesn't realize how lucky he is."

"Thank you."

Don turned and studied her for a few minutes. "I can't imagine you marrying an idiot. There must be something really special about this guy if you love him."

Terry managed a smile. "You know, Don, running is only a solution in baseball, and even then, you have to go home sometime."

Don laughed. "Oh, that should be on a bumper sticker."

Terry chuckled and stirred her tea.

"What do we do, Terr?"

"Well, step one is going to cost us."

"How so?" Don asked.

Terry took a sip of tea. "Because I don't think we can get refunds on our tickets."

"I've got an open return," Don said. "I haven't checked in yet."

"Okay, then I'm the one out the price of a ticket."

"I'll split the cost with you if you tell me what to do next," Don paused. "Hell, if your plan works, I'll buy tickets for you and Wade to where ever you want to go."

Terry's eyes crinkled. "You've got a deal," she said. "I'll pass on you splitting the cost of this ticket. Wade and I have spent more on marriage counseling. But the trip to Rio is one I can't refuse."

Don grinned into his drink. "Rio, eh? For Carnivale? I remember discussing that." He looked sad. "So many missed opportunities."

"So don't miss this one," Terry said. "You're brother is getting married. You need to be there."

"How will I manage that?" Don said. "I haven't got an invitation. I don't want to force Dad to have to take sides. This is hurting him enough as it is."

Terry shot him a wicked grin and Don sat up straighter with an answering smile starting on his face. They'd been partners for a long time, and had complete faith in the other's ability to be devious.

"_I_ was invited," Terry said blandly. "I accepted for two, and there's no way Wade will go to a wedding of a friend of mine without me."

Don actually laughed. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time I played your husband, would it?"

"Come with, then," Terry said.

Don smiled. "Thanks, Terr."

"I haven't done anything yet," Terry protested.

"Yes, you have," Don said softly. "You always seem to show up just when I need you most."

He grinned. "So, where can we find these pink fuzzy handcuffs of yours?"


End file.
